


THE BAD PARKS AND RECREATION PLACE

by Broba



Category: Parks and Recreation, The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Comedy, Comedy of Errors, Other, just silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14246454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: good-janet.tumblr.com said that "Someone should write a fic where Ben Wyatt and Trevor change places" so I did.This one is purely just for my own amusement, don't expect anything smutty this time round folks!





	THE BAD PARKS AND RECREATION PLACE

“So, I just sit here and talk to camera?”  
“Sure, just look right here and start when you see the red light.”  
“What am I supposed to be saying?”  
“This is what we call b-roll. Just give us a little commentary about your day, thoughts, opinions, the kind of stuff we can drop in between sections. Don't think too hard about it, just give us whatever comes into your mind. Ready?”  
“Uh, okay, yeah sure this is fine, ready.”  
“Go!”  
“Hi there, losers. I'm Trevor, an immortal being dedicated to the eternal punishment of you people after you die. Ever wonder what it felt like to have your actual brain scooped out and stuffed up your butt? Statistically, most of you are going to find out!”  
“Uh, what?”

The well-dressed and amiable man who had been speaking to camera smiled, nodded at the crew, and walked out of the little side-office at the Pawnee department of Parks and Recreation that had been set aside for these little moments. The film crew that had been following members of the department in their daily lives exchanged glances. Ben Wyatt was always a little quirky- what they privately called “Normal Enough For Pawnee,” but this was something else.

Meanwhile, in a place that was indefinable, ineffable and generally unquantifiable place Ben Wyatt opened his eyes to find himself staring directly at a pleasingly beige wall decorated, in tall green letters, with the legend:

DO NOT PANIC. NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED SHORTLY.

In many ways, it was exactly what he needed to see in that moment. He couldn't quite recall how he had come to be in a tastefully, but calmly decorated room in what looked like the anteroom to an office. He had no idea why he had arrived here or what he had intended to do here. Looking around, he wasn't entirely sure where “here” actually was. But, at least, someone was in charge. According to the wall, normal service would normally be resumed. That meant there were rules. Rules which, while perhaps suspended for the time being, would come back into effect before long. There was a plan. It was very comforting.

To his left, a door opened and an older gentleman sporting a neatly coiffed mane of white hair poked his head out.  
“Benjamin Wyatt? Thank you for your patience, this really will be over very soon I cannot- I cannot apologise enough. Thank you for bearing with me.”  
And then then door closed again. Ben frowned slightly, but accepted this. It was not an explanation, but it was nice not to be alone. From the other room came the sound of muttering, the cadence of someone dictating into a recording machine. Ben reflected that he hadn't actually been told he was in trouble or anything, so he saw no reason to remain seated on what was, he had to admit, an extraordinarily comfortable couch. It was perfect, even. He stood and moved to the door, and the sound of muttering became a little clearer to make out.

“Attempt number three hundred and four- this time we've at least managed to get through the first day without a disaster but I don't know how long we're going to hold out here, it's already looking like the same problems are coming up already-”  
Ben knocked politely on the door, he hadn't meant to but he accidentally pushed it open a little. The man who had greeted him before was dictating into an old fashioned reel-to-reel recording machine. He glanced up and stopped the recording.  
“Ah, something I can help you with there Benjamin?”  
“Please, just call me Ben. And you are...?”  
“Michael. I'm sorry I couldn't introduce myself properly before but you see I'm really in the middle of quite an important project...”  
Ben nodded sagely. One thing he prided himself was understanding the importance of a well organised and properly administered project. He sensed that he was in the presence of a man after his own heart.  
“I was just wondering, um, where exactly I am? What kind of a place is this?”  
“Oh that,” Michael waved vaguely, “This is a trans-dimensional plane formed from the very essence of the cosmos.”  
Ben felt a queasily familiar sensation, he was definitely about to freak out.  
“Oh,” was all he could manage.  
Michael sighed and put down the little hand microphone he had been speaking into, and steepled his fingers calmly.  
“There's really no easy way to explain this to you, Ben, but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait here for a little while, as one of my colleagues is using your form on Earth.”  
“Earth? You mean, this isn't...?”  
Michael gestured, and in the middle of the room a vividly blue hologram of the planet Earth appeared. The display was covered in various statistics and pictograms, and everywhere little markers and indicators counting up, or down. Ben got the impression of a system of accounting that was so wide ranging, so powerful and intensely perfect that it was all he could do not to drool.  
“It's really quite simple,” Michael stood up and walked around the front of his desk, “in order to interact with people, like you, eternal all-powerful beings, like me, have to adopt human forms. This means we are randomly assigned a human being from all of the Earth to look like, you see? But this means that when one of us has to visit Earth the relevant human is brought into a trans-dimensional space to wait things out. We can't have even the possibility of two perfectly identical people on the planet at the same time, the paperwork alone would be ridiculous!”  
“Oh, of course! You're talking about a conserved system of prudential accounting in respect of identities in the world!”  
Michael was, as far as it was possible for him, taken aback. “Well, yes actually. That's about a ninety-three percent accurate description of the system.”  
“So while one of you is down there, I'm up here.”  
“Right. So you see, if you could just wait in the room?”  
“So is this like the official waiting area or something? It's fascinating-”  
“No, no nothing like that. We have a buddy system really, Trevor has been a colleague of mine for a long time so we agreed that if either of us visits the Earth then the other one looks after the human, while you're here.”  
“Sort of a Quantum Leap situation? He's putting right what once went wrong, in my body?”  
“Oh dear. Remember I said you were ninety-three percent correct? You just cost yourself about half of those percentage points.”

Meanwhile, in a place that was altogether locatable, understandable and generally quantifiable Trevor was getting on with his job. He fully intended to ensure that in this sickeningly nice location where people had been earning a statistically unacceptable amount of points toward their eternal reward in the afterlife that things were going to change. He was going to put wrong what was in serious danger of going right.

The first thing to go had been the tie and horribly boring shirt. He had replaced them with a t-shirt emblazoned with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and a leather jacket that was far too shiny, both road signs on that highway to the bad place. He swivelled in his desk-chair to look over the skinny little man who was evidently attempting to sell him something.  
“Ben,” said Tom, “Ben. Ben! Benny! I've got something here that's going to literally-literally! Blow your mind.”  
Trevor sighed, “Every tiny little piece of information you've just used is- it's just completely inaccurate. Is there a point to all this?”  
“Glad you asked, my man! I have a primo investment opportunity and I want you, Ben, in on the ground floor on day one.”  
“Okay let's try this- imagine for a moment that I'm already literally aware of everything you could possibly be talking about and if you're about to show me something completely worthless, I'm just- I'm just going to take your head? Yes? And I'm going to, like, put it inside of something. I don't even know what yet. A box, or something.”  
“Oh wow, this is a real new you Ben, and I like it! Assertive. Powerful. Exactly the kind of man who isn't going to wait on the postal service to pass his hand-written premium memos to his underlings like some kind of a chump.”  
Trevor leaned forward, planting his elbows on his desk and noisily opening a plastic-wrapped candy that he had no intention of eating, with an unpleasant crinkling sound.  
“Go on, I'm listening....”  
“I got a buddy who has developed a new and exclusive process for the executive who wants to hand around the slap-downs but don't got time to wait around.”  
“That tag-line is so insane that I think just saying it makes your brain bleed a little.”  
“I know, right? So check it out. I write out a message like so-”  
Tom took a sheet of paper from the desk and crudely scribbled his own name across it.  
“With you so far.”  
“And then, I place it inside the machine my buddy has been working on in his basement? And it's like, like it takes a selfie of the paper? And it sends it to another machine somewhere else, and the message gets printed out. Bam. Instantaneous. Premium. No postal stamps. It's all done through the phone lines or something, I don't know the science stuff.”  
Trevor the demon stared straight ahead of him, slowly piecing together the idea in his mind.  
“Tom, am I correct in assuming- and I know how ridiculous this is going to sound- but are you claiming that you've invented the fax?”  
“I don't know what that is, is that a word?”  
“You- you literally just described one. And I'm using the word correctly, unlike you before. We had those in, like, the eighties!”  
“Hey you're talking ancient history now, I don't even know how long ago that is, was there a war or something? Is this like old-people talk right now? Face it, you just had your mind blown by my amazing idea, playa.”  
“Yes. Yes Tom, I can pretty much say my mind is blown right now.”  
Tom perched on the side of the desk, carefully folded the piece of paper with his name on it and placed it in the breast pocket of his immaculate suit.  
“Then I guess I was right to use the word literally. Think it over, the genius takes a while for the normal folks to understand.”  
He made a double-palmed “boom” gesture and backed out of the office, certain that he had just made the business pitch of the century. Trevor just gaped.  
“I'm going to turn this place into a smoking crater,” he mused aloud, “and then, I'm going to open up an all-night gumbo superstore.”

Meanwhile in a place that was incomprehensible, unknowable and utterly baffling, Ben Wyatt was trying to be helpful, while he was around.  
“Come on, man! I might surprise you! I can help you with all this stuff, this is literally what I'm good at!”  
“You don't understand,” said Michael calmly, “by which I mean that it is literally impossible for your human mind to process the concepts involved. And when I say literally I am using the word correctly.”  
“Just give me a chance. What's the worst that could happen?”  
Michael sighed, and gestured again. Once more a holographic map appeared, this time showing an overhead view of a neighbourhood with neatly laid out paths and boulevards winding between a range of mixed-use developments.  
“What I'm creating here is a brilliant new concept in planning an environment that will produce in the residents the absolute certainty that they are living in a perfect utopia at all times, using effectively unlimited time and resources. This is absolutely outside anything you're familiar with.”  
Ben just smiled, and cracked his knuckles. “Oh yeah. I can work with this.”  
“Well I really don't see how.”  
“I'm going to need some pens, a lot of graph paper, oh! And a spreadsheet!”  
Michael sighed again. “Oh well. What's the worst that could happen.”  
“I've got a few concepts to run by you that I think you're going to find very exciting.”

Meanwhile, in a place that was far more prosaic, ordinary and technically average Trevor the demon was having a difficult day.  
“I don't understand what the problem is here. I'm saying, we tear everything down and literally dance on the ashes, and I am using that word correctly. I thought you hated this place?”  
“Listen, son,” Ron twitched the edge of his blankly opaque moustaches into an expression of mild irritation, “I'm all for reducing government oversight. Literally everything we do in this department is a complete waste of time and money-” he held up a hand before Trevor could interject- “and I am absolutely using that word correctly.”  
“Then why get in my way here? Work with me, Ron! Together we can obliterate this whole stinking department! You and me, Ron. Mai-tais, a couple of hula girls, we can have a barbecue over the flaming remnants of all these reports that end up going nowhere!”  
“You might think you can tempt me with all this talk of tearing up regulation and destroying the department but I would very much like you to understand that it isn't going to happen. In fact it is only the strongest level of self control which is preventing me from rendering you unconscious with a billy club.”  
“Oh come on. Why would you even have a billy club, Ron.”  
Ron Swanson reached down beside him and pulled open a desk drawer with a scrape of wood, reaching inside.  
“Spoken like a man who thinks he is feeling lucky. Do I strike you as someone who doesn't have access to a selection of hard woods and an industrial lathe?”  
Trevor looked at Ron, and Ron looked at Trevor. Then Trevor decided not to push that particular line of inquiry.  
“You've got to admit it's tempting though, right? I can have fifteen hundred gallons of aviation fuel and the Hawaiian volleyball team here by six.”  
“You seem to misunderstand me, Ben. I'm in favour of de-funding, privatising, or shutting down this particular waste of taxpayer money. In fact I'd like to take all of that money and return it to the community in the form of something more useful, such as a three storey tall bronze statue of basketball coaching legend Bobby Knight or a finely crafted pine-wood canoe in every garage. This does not, however, mean in any way that I would support a plan to create some kind of open-air free love hippy song-and-dance festival.”  
“Uh, wait okay let me try again-”  
“This is starting to sound like a big load of hooplah. I'm not a fan of hooplah, son.”  
It was the moustache that did it. The moustache seemed to be glaring at him, too. Trevor wilted.  
“I'll... I'll just...”  
“I think you better had.”

As Trevor departed the office he felt a slim arm catch his elbow, as April tugged him down a corridor. She stared balefully up at him and Trevor loosened his collar with a finger.  
“I heard what you said. I was passing by your office, and I like the sound of burning things.”  
“All right, about time I made some progress here.”  
“No, I mean that I literally like the sound of burning things. Your office is on fire, it sounds great.”  
Trevor broke into a run, but not before calling over his shoulder that he appreciated her correct use of the word literally.

Trevor's office was indeed on fire. A grotesque, ramshakle metal monstrosity roughly in the shape of a cube was sat on his desk, belching out paper from a slot at the top. The sheets were searingly hot and several of them had already caught flame, forming a pile on the carpet that was crackling away merrily as the flames licked up his desk. Trevor snatched up the latest page coming out of the machine, it had the word “Tom” crudely drawn across it. The primitive, practically steam-powered fax machine had turned out a hundred others like it already. Behind him, he heard a familiar voice.  
“Okay, so, point one- there's some bugs in the system we still need to work out.”  
Trevor turned, slowly, to gaze upon Tom's awful, grinning countenance. He just knew he was about to start screaming.

Meanwhile in a baffling realm beyond all human knowledge and understanding, people were falling over, everywhere. The sound of surprised yells and collisions filled the air. A happy fountain in the middle of the neighbourhood had turned into a frozen hazard that had already claimed many shins.  
“Mother flapping shirtballs!” A blonde woman yelled what curses she could in this place as she slipped over, landing on her rump and sliding down the side walk past the horrified Michael. Beside him, Ben was cringing.  
“Ben... what have you done?”  
“I made a slight miscalculation! I didn't realise that this place has so many inclines!”  
Michael reached down and scooped up a fluffy white handful of snow, crushing flakes between finger and thumb.  
“Janet! What is going on here?”  
There was an audible ping, and a woman in a neat fur coat and fur-lined pillbox hat appeared beside him.  
“Hi! Welcome to Ice Town Two! It's a very exciting concept!”  
“People are falling over, there's no running water anywhere, this is a disaster!”  
“I know! This level of precipitation along with the ambient temperature is entirely inappropriate!” Janet gave a wide-mouthed smile of encouragement. Ben held up a hand sheepishly.  
“I think I may have gone a little far, and let me be the first to say-”

Whatever Ben was about to be the first to say was cut off by a low, grinding rumble that quickly rose to a deafening roar. Up the hill towards the higher part of town, a white wall of absolute destruction was sweeping buildings aside like matchwood. Michael stared in shock.  
“Janet? What am I looking at?”  
“That's an avalanche! The entire neighbourhood is about to be consumed by snow. Did you know that thermal shock is going to cause glaciation of the entire area?” She looked absolutely delighted, as ever.  
“Okay,” began Ben, “when you said effectively unlimited resources, you kind of reminded me of this project I could never get off the ground properly, and I kind of went a little crazy...”  
“How is this possible?”  
“Oh that would be me!” Janet gave a little wave, “I can literally remake the entire neighbourhood at will.”  
“She's right,” agreed Ben, “she's not using that word lightly. I really thought it would all work out this time! I can't believe I got it so wrong again.”  
Michael sighed and patted his shoulder, “well, don't worry about it. I actually know how you feel, about that.”  
“I don't suppose there's much chance of giving it another try?”  
A rather charming Italian restaurant named “The Pasta And Ragu-rious” was annihilated by a mound of snow the size of a house.  
“No,” said Michael, “perhaps not. I would have borrowed a human phrase and said “when the Bad Place freezes over,” but you already did that.”  
“I feel just awful about this, I really do.”  
“Oh, don't be too hard on yourself.”  
“You're not angry?”  
“Well, maybe be just a little bit hard on yourself.”

Meanwhile, somewhere far less frozen, less tundra-like and less ethically challenging Trevor was sat on a wall outside of the office, drinking from a hip-flask. Already today he had been set aflame, threatened, offered some kind of a loaf made of mushrooms that was supposedly low in fat and super healthy, and some woman had taken every terrible idea and suggestion he could devise and turned them all, somehow, into enough successful policy to devise weeks worth of presentations. Nothing he had done had dented the place in any way.

Trevor pulled himself to his feet and pocketed his flask, running a hand desperately through his hair to try and regain some composure.  
“There you are, silly!”  
Leslie advanced on him, with four stuffed-full binders clutched under her arms.  
“Wha-?”  
“Come on! We've got another meeting with the council, and then we get to co-chair a public listening session!”  
“Public...?”  
“I know, crazy right? Looks like you and me will be burning the ol' midnight oil writing all the minutes up!”  
Trevor blinked. He let out a mad, bright little chuckle.  
“I think... I just figured it out!”  
“What's that, hon?”  
“THIS is the Bad Place!”


End file.
